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By Barlapipas 6
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Posts:  476
Joined:  Tue Aug 30, 2022 11:26 pm
#422451
Tomorrow the temperature will hit to 28°C and it is in the middle of OCTOBER! I live in Greece so my climate is Mediterranean (temperate with mild winters and hot summers). But usually the temperatures now don’t get over 20°C. I think this is the first time that it gets so hot in October. Is these the consequences from climate change? :oops:
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By ChefDean
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Joined:  Tue Sep 18, 2018 12:44 am
#422463
Yes. But then you must look at what might be the cause of climate change.
Although many scientists believe humans are the major contributor to climate change, the media reports this, and politicians use it as their campaign platforms. There are also just as many scientists who see it as a natural, cyclical process that will happen with or without us based on historical information.
I actually did a research paper on this early in my college experience that shows that humans only add about ~5% of the total carbon to the environment via various emissions. The other ~95% is emitted naturally. While not all of the carbon is recaptured by nature every year, it can and does contribute to climate change, humans aren't the major contributor. The carbon cycle also fluctuates by ~10-15% annually. Some years is produces more than it absorbs, other it absorbs more than it produces. It will happen without our extra input.
Looking at stats for today, average land global temperatures today are ~ 57°F (14°C), average ocean temperatures are 68°F (20°C). These are average global temps, your local conditions will vary. Back around the height of the dinosaurs, global temperatures averaged ~75°F (~24°C), and the oceans averaged ~95°F (~35°C), the ocean levels were higher, and the polar ice caps were nonexistent, all without a single human present. There are times it was even warmer before and after the big meteor. Granted, no one was there to record and document these stats, they are estimated based on decades of accepted scientific research.
Even in the last 400,000 years, with very few critters that could be considered human, there have been quite a few fluctuations in global temperatures, causing alternating ice ages and warmer periods. Still "climate change", just not the doom and gloom that is being forced down your throat daily from all angles.
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Many of the same scientists who predicted disastrous global warming (in the 90's) also predicted (in the 70's, based on only 14 years of data) a new ice age coming within the next century due to global cooling. They eventually figured out that aerosol CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) were causing the cooling and quickly remedied their emissions. They then switched to predictions of massive warming, with some of them claiming massively rising sea levels by the early 2000's and the ice caps having a 75% chance of being gone by the mid 20-teens (dodged a bullet there). When none of that ever came about, they changed their platform to "climate change". Can't really fight that one, because every change affects the climate. My dog chewing up a plastic toy and pooping plastic pieces in my yard may block a seed from germinating in that exact spot. Now that plant that could have served as a waystation for a endangered bug will never grow, and that bug may go extinct. Not to mention the pounds of carbon that that plant would absorb over the next decade. It's all "climate change", but now it's too broad of a definition. You really can't dispute that the climate is changing, it always has and always will.
Climate change scientists predict that we will be at the same average temperature in the year 2100 as it was 50 million years ago, but that is based on computer simulations, not hard scientific data, there is a difference. The estimates of conditions millions of years ago are based on data that has been proven to be accurate time and time again, with much less than a percentage point margin of error. While the predictions of future conditions are based on computer simulations, anyone who knows anything about computers knows that they do what they are told. Essentially, you input a, b, and c, and the computer will output x, y, and z based on those figures and the progession you tell it to take. You can try to program the variations in the carbon cycle with the variations in human emitted carbon, but you won't have a high degree of accuracy much further than a few years out. To say that the average summertime temperature in Columbia will be 101.5°F in the year 2100 (very possible) is not much is a stretch as the average summertime temperature is 97°F today, with some areas already hitting 105°F on average. However, 80 years from now, there will not likely be anyone around to record whether it's right or wrong.
Without knowing where in Greece you live, 28°C might not be unheard of. Looking at data for Greece, I've seen records of as high as 38°C and as low as 4°C in October for Athens; a difference of 34°C (93°F). Climate change? Or the cyclical process of how the natural world just is?
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By Dan V
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Posts:  232
Joined:  Tue Oct 26, 2021 4:32 am
#422467
The cyclical process of how the natural world just is!
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By NightRaider
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Joined:  Mon Jun 07, 2021 4:01 am
#422469
I really wish I hadn't read this coming from you, but I'll go ahead and take the bait because the vast majority of this is so easily demonstrably false. And this is coming from someone who (regrettably) used to believe the same thing.
ChefDean wrote:Although many scientists believe humans are the major contributor to climate change, the media reports this, and politicians use it as their campaign platforms. There are also just as many scientists who see it as a natural, cyclical process that will happen with or without us based on historical information.
Yes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. - NASA
ChefDean wrote:I actually did a research paper on this early in my college experience that shows that humans only add about ~5% of the total carbon to the environment via various emissions. The other ~95% is emitted naturally. While not all of the carbon is recaptured by nature every year, it can and does contribute to climate change, humans aren't the major contributor. The carbon cycle also fluctuates by ~10-15% annually. Some years is produces more than it absorbs, other it absorbs more than it produces. It will happen without our extra input.
This is technically true but intentionally misleading. Even if humans only contribute ~5% of the annual carbon emissions of the entire planet, the planet doesn't have a way to quickly reabsorb those emissions. The result is atmospheric CO2 concentration graphs that look like this:
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If people emit only a tenth as much CO2 as nature does, then why are scientists so concerned about our emissions driving climate change? It is because our extra chunk of carbon emissions has tipped out of equilibrium what was once a balanced cycle. “What's being taken out by natural processes is more or less equal to what's being put in—other than the extent to which we've disturbed it,” Rothman says. This is why the atmospheric level of CO2 continues to creep up as humans keep burning fossil fuels: Human activities tip the scales by adding carbon to the air faster than the planet’s sinks can absorb it. ... Because of the glacial pace at which natural carbon sinks absorb CO2, much of the carbon dioxide humans have emitted over the past centuries will remain in the atmosphere for many years to come. This will be true even if humans were to stop emitting all greenhouse gases tomorrow—the planet would need hundreds or thousands of years to cleanse all the excess CO2 people have pumped into the atmosphere during the industrial era.
ChefDean wrote:Looking at stats for today, average land global temperatures today are ~ 57°F (14°C), average ocean temperatures are 68°F (20°C). These are average global temps, your local conditions will vary. Back around the height of the dinosaurs, global temperatures averaged ~75°F (~24°C), and the oceans averaged ~95°F (~35°C), the ocean levels were higher, and the polar ice caps were nonexistent, all without a single human present. There are times it was even warmer before and after the big meteor. Granted, no one was there to record and document these stats, they are estimated based on decades of accepted scientific research.
I'm not going to look up your numbers to confirm or dispute them, because the changes that took place to bring temperatures to where they are now took place over geologic timescales - literally millions of years. I don't think anyone is going to argue that natural, geological climate change doesn't occur - the problem we face currently is that it's happening at a pace of hundreds of years rather than the minimum of tens of thousands of years such cycles take to occur naturally. And when the global climate changes that quickly, countless numbers of species aren't going to be able to adapt quickly enough to survive it, including many of those this entire forum revolves around.
ChefDean wrote:Even in the last 400,000 years, with very few critters that could be considered human, there have been quite a few fluctuations in global temperatures, causing alternating ice ages and warmer periods. Still "climate change", just not the doom and gloom that is being forced down your throat daily from all angles.
I'll share a bit more detailed version of your graph here: Image Though warming has not been uniform across the planet, the upward trend in the globally averaged temperature shows that more areas are warming than cooling. According to NOAA's 2021 Annual Climate Report the combined land and ocean temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.14 degrees Fahrenheit ( 0.08 degrees Celsius) per decade since 1880; however, the average rate of increase since 1981 (0.18°C / 0.32°F) has been more than twice that rate. - Climate.gov
Once again, nobody is disputing that the climate naturally fluctuates and that the Earth doesn't go through warmer and cooler periods on its own. Again, the issue is that currently we're facing a current rate of ~1°F rise in global temperatures every 30 years and are only increasing in pace. Even at the current rate, similar historical swings in temperature occurred over spans of thousands of years.
ChefDean wrote:Many of the same scientists who predicted disastrous global warming (in the 90's) also predicted (in the 70's, based on only 14 years of data) a new ice age coming within the next century due to global cooling. They eventually figured out that aerosol CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) were causing the cooling and quickly remedied their emissions. They then switched to predictions of massive warming, with some of them claiming massively rising sea levels by the early 2000's and the ice caps having a 75% chance of being gone by the mid 20-teens (dodged a bullet there).
I fail to see the problem here? According to what you've posted, the scientists identified human emissions were causing cooling based on what little data they had, determined the source and remedied it. Now, with a larger data set and that factor removed, they issued new predictions based on a still-limited set of data. When they got more data showing that their predictions were inaccurate, along with vastly improved computational resources for future modelling, they issued new predictions which have so far been largely correct. That's what science is, adjusting predictions to become more accurate as you gain new information.
ChefDean wrote: When none of that ever came about, they changed their platform to "climate change". Can't really fight that one, because every change affects the climate. My dog chewing up a plastic toy and pooping plastic pieces in my yard may block a seed from germinating in that exact spot. Now that plant that could have served as a waystation for a endangered bug will never grow, and that bug may go extinct. Not to mention the pounds of carbon that that plant would absorb over the next decade. It's all "climate change", but now it's too broad of a definition. You really can't dispute that the climate is changing, it always has and always will.
We've reached a point where we've observed so many unprecedented weather patterns and natural disasters attributed at least in part to climate change that the term "Global Warming" became inaccurate and misleading because it didn't encompass anywhere close to the total amount of consequences that that term would lead normal people to believe. You posit that "Climate Change" is a misleading term because it can mean any changes to the climate besides global warming, but that is quite literally the point. It's climate change due to global warming. The latter part of this is just a bad-faith strawman argument and a weak attempt at redirection - not one person is claiming that the climate doesn't naturally change, nor that your dog's strategic placement of feces is a meaningful contributor to climate change.
ChefDean wrote:Climate change scientists predict that we will be at the same average temperature in the year 2100 as it was 50 million years ago, but that is based on computer simulations, not hard scientific data, there is a difference. The estimates of conditions millions of years ago are based on data that has been proven to be accurate time and time again, with much less than a percentage point margin of error. While the predictions of future conditions are based on computer simulations, anyone who knows anything about computers knows that they do what they are told. Essentially, you input a, b, and c, and the computer will output x, y, and z based on those figures and the progession you tell it to take. You can try to program the variations in the carbon cycle with the variations in human emitted carbon, but you won't have a high degree of accuracy much further than a few years out.To say that the average summertime temperature in Columbia will be 101.5°F in the year 2100 (very possible) is not much is a stretch as the average summertime temperature is 97°F today, with some areas already hitting 105°F on average. However, 80 years from now, there will not likely be anyone around to record whether it's right or wrong.
How do you think they came up with past data? If I had to take a guess, I'd say they probably used a computer that takes a, b, and c and will output x, y, and z based on those figures and the progression you tell it to take. That said, how do you think they predict future conditions? It's not like they pull numbers of of thin air, they have historical data to feed into those models as well. And for the variables they can't accurately predict? As you said, they issue variations of those models with those variables altered, and while not every model predicts 50-million year highs in a mere 100 years time, which I'll agree is frankly ridiculous, they do virtually all agree that the future doesn't look good.

All that said, I don't understand the point of advocating for people to stick their heads in the sand or throw their hands up and say there's nothing we can do about it. Just suppose, even if somehow 97% of scientists were wrong and humanity had nothing to do with climate change, where is the harm in advocating for reduced emissions and pollution resulting from the burning of fossil fuels - which alone is already estimated to kill over 8 million people annually.

Also,
ChefDean wrote:anyone who knows anything about computers knows that they do what they are told.
I got a kick out of this as a developer. While technically true, believe me when I say I wish they did what I tell them to.

Anyway, no offense to you personally because I've been there as well, but now that we have another couple decades of data since the 2000s when this view was so prevalent it's become clear that this hasn't aged well and is no longer able to be reconciled with the conditions we're able to observe today.
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By DragonsEye
Posts:  1338
Joined:  Sat Oct 01, 2016 1:22 pm
#422497
You've done kicked the hornets nest, Chef. Anyone that doesn't "toe the line" of "conventional wisdom" -- especially in this day and age is bound to get a lot of heat.
NightRaider wrote: Sat Oct 22, 2022 5:17 pm I really wish I hadn't read this coming from you, but I'll go ahead and take the bait ..
Not "bait" Night Raider. Just a viewpoint -- and one he has every right to put forward. "Bait" implies Chef is "trolling" or otherwise trying to stir up trouble. Too many people want to go straight to battle stations when a viewpoint contrary to accepted public view is expressed. (Not saying this is you, NR.)
NightRaider wrote: Sat Oct 22, 2022 5:17 pmYes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.
True, but even that has to be taken with a grain of salt. There IS politics in the field of science -- quite a bit, unfortunately. If your research is in line with what is currently the "hot topic" (and, in particular, is in keeping with what will attract readers), you are far more likely to get support and funding.
NightRaider wrote: Sat Oct 22, 2022 5:17 pm And when the global climate changes that quickly, countless numbers of species aren't going to be able to adapt quickly enough to survive it, including many of those this entire forum revolves around.
Very true. But the premise that, without our interference, rapid climate change does not happen is deeply flawed. There have been numerous mass extinctions due to rapidly changing climate long before humans came along. For that matter, here in the US, we live (most of us blissfully unaware) with a ticking bomb that will cause a "nuclear winter" scenario when it finally goes off -- the super volcano that exists under Yosemite. But I digress ...
NightRaider wrote: Sat Oct 22, 2022 5:17 pm All that said, I don't understand the point of advocating for people to stick their heads in the sand or throw their hands up and say there's nothing we can do about it. Just suppose, even if somehow 97% of scientists were wrong and humanity had nothing to do with climate change, where is the harm in advocating for reduced emissions and pollution resulting from the burning of fossil fuels - [url=https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/ ... ly-thought]which alone is already estimated to kill over 8 million people annually.
I don't know of anyone who would disagree with the value of reducing emissions or pollution in the form of solid & liquid waste, in general. Chef certainly didn't. (Although the hypocrisy of idiot politicians always galls me. No matter which party they are from, while they give lip-service to the enviro bandwagon they have their private planes and are in no way trying to reduce the pollution their lifestyles produce.) The problem is the feasibility and effectiveness of doing so. Currently, there are no "safe", efficient alternatives to fossil fuels. Wind turbines, for example, are not very efficient, can only function with winds in a limited speed range and kill hundreds of thousands of birds and bats each year in the US alone. Electric cars? Sounds good but the compounds used to for their batteries is very toxic as is the frighteningly copious amount of hazardous wastes created in their production. The list goes on.
By Dan V
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Posts:  232
Joined:  Tue Oct 26, 2021 4:32 am
#422499
Just install "Giant" Catalytic Converters on all of the active volcanos - problem solved - your welcome.
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By Nepenthes0260
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Posts:  1774
Joined:  Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:59 am
#422750
Climate change is continuous and inevitable. Rapid climate change is what should be of concern; climate change that occurs so quickly that it does not give populations time to evolve and adapt to these changing temperatures. In our particular, current case, this rapid climate change is brought on, largely, by excess, human-related, CO2 emissions. While we may contribute a comparatively small amount to global atmospheric CO2 percentages, those original, human-unrelated CO2 levels, in conjunction with several other notable gas molecules, are what produce the famous "greenhouse effect" that is required to sustain our current selection of biota on this planet. So even a "marginal" increase in atmospheric CO2 by humans, maybe just 5 or 10 percent, can rapidly (mind you, on an evolutionary time scale) increase temperatures to levels current populations are unable to handle. What really doesn't help is that humans are determined to destroy natural carbon sinks such as peatlands (which also function as our favorite CP habitat!) in order to build that next shopping mall, parking lot, or Walmart.
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